Learnfare Program Gets Mixed Grades

November 26, 1989|By Rogers Worthington, Chicago Tribune.

MILWAUKEE — So sparse is the household that Lottie Hobson shares with her 15-year-old daughter Darnell and infant grandson Dequam that the family`s television set stares out like a startled eye on a living room utterly bare of furniture.

Now comes word from the county Department of Social Services that $77 will be cut from Hobson`s monthly family support check of $517.

The reason: Darnell had more than two days of unexcused absences from school last month. Hobson, 38, a Mississippian who moved to Milwaukee 15 years ago, said her daughter was home with pink eye and that she wrote excuses to school officials.

``Somebody needs to be doing something,`` Hobson said. ``They had their excuses and weren`t supposed to sanction my check.``

Such sanctions are the key element in the pioneering but troubled Learnfare program of Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. In an effort to break the cycle of poverty by compelling impoverished teens to stay in school, Learnfare ties an indigent mother`s aid payments to her child`s school attendance.

If students have 10 unexcused absences in the previous semester, as Darnell did when she was expecting Dequam, their attendance is monitored closely. Three unexcused absences in a month can result in an automatic cut in the payment the mother receives the next month under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. The cuts, which are equal to the amount allowed for that child, can range from $77 to $200 a month, depending on family size. Critics charge that Learnfare, which was introduced statewide in the fall of 1988, is a punitive, discriminatory and politically conceived program that was implemented too quickly.

``This is a welfare reform program, not an educational reform progam,``

said Jerome Brandl, principal of Washington High School in Milwaukee`s inner- city, which Darnell Hobson attended last year. ``As a solution to attendance problems, I don`t think it has much value.``

Spokesmen for the Thompson administration say such judgment is premature and that fine-tuning of the program will solve its problems. The program will be buttressed, they say, with more accurate record-keeping, verification and case managers to work with truants and dropouts.

``I`m encouraging people at this point not to draw any conclusions,``

said Patricia Goodrich, secretary of the state`s Department of Health and Social Services, which oversees Learnfare.

Learnfare`s supporters say it is an accepted expression of the social contract that a government program expect and require aid recipients to fulfill an obligation to work toward self-sufficiency.

``I don`t apologize for expecting students to become responsible young people. Nor do I apologize for expecting their parents to take part in that,`` said John Hays, principal of South Division High School in Milwaukee.

But at this point there are no figures available to show if Learnfare is succeeding.

An average of 2,300 sanctions are issued each month, 1,600 of those in Milwaukee. State officials say a little more than one-third of those whose parents are sanctioned return to school. That is a third more than otherwise would have returned, they say.

But some question the accuracy of those figures. They say they do not take into account, among other things, an increase in excuse notes signed by parents to avoid sanctions.

Still, so confident are state officials of Learnfare`s long-term promise, that two weeks ago legislation was proposed to extend the program`s age range of 19 to 13 down to 6 years, an age where parents can exercise stronger control over a child`s attendance.

About the same time the legislation was introduced, a lawsuit was filed by Legal Action of Wisconsin challenging the constitutionality of Learnfare.

The suit charges the program with flawed attendance figures that result in unfair sanctions, lack of an immediate appeals process and failure to notify a parent that their child`s attendance is being monitored under Learnfare.

The result can be extreme hardship for a family, said Anne de Leo, a volunteer lawyer with the group.

``You`re trying to get a kid back into school, and you get the whole family evicted because they can`t pay their rent,`` she said. The legal group has better than a 65 percent success rate in reversing sanctions for clients who claim their AFDC payments were wrongly cut, de Leo said.

Milwaukee public school officials acknowledge there are problems in getting accurate and current attendance figures. Some of the program`s other problems may have to do with getting a smooth working relationship in the forced marriage between school systems and county social service agencies, often the balkiest and most complex of public bureaucracies.

Some parents on AFDC argue that the program unfairly penalizes them by expecting them to be accountable for the actions of their teenaged children.

Some young people may even see the sanctions as a way teens can acquire leverage in a family.